By Your Own Hand
by spheeris1
Summary: Post Season Two, then AU :: Ashely POV :: Loads of angst :: One-shot :: Ashley never comes back from Europe.


Sometimes you are pushed too hard, sometimes it is by your own hand, and you stagger when you should just stand… and before you know it, you are thousands of miles away and school is a memory and you've wounded so many – you've taken lives in this unknown war of yours – and that boy you treated so callously keeps on calling you up.

And that girl you abandoned has lost your number.

And a grave sits silent, drunken band-mates taking up the space you should be holding, replacing dead flowers with empty bottles.

And a mother flies back home, as eager to leave you behind as you are eager to stay lost, the clip-clip-clip of her heels like knives into your back.

And a sister tries to understand you, but you'd tell her to give up that chase…you'd tell her that if either of you would talk, if you'd just let some other desperate child into your messed-up world.

But no, that wouldn't be like you at all.

You, pretty eyes all red from hours up and hours drugged and hours drunk… You don't talk to anyone much anymore. Least of all to the people who actually love you.

/

In a picture-perfect story, you'd be sneaking back to those familiar shores and flailing about in your own crazy ocean and you'd beg for a forgiveness you don't deserve.

And, one day, you'd earn it.

You'd tend that tombstone and you'd kiss that sister's brow and you'd leave behind that maternal-tinted bitterness and you'd fix that boy with honesty.

And, one day, you'd pick up the phone and call that girl and she'd ask you to the beach – the place where she confessed all her secrets and where you fell in love – and you'd fall at her feet, sand like needles in your skin.

She'd take you back. She'd take you in. She'd make you whole again.

But no, that wouldn't be like you at all.

You, tired bag of bones still moving to some relentless beat and still dying to some aching tune… You don't ever go back to L.A. after that long ago night.

You don't go back to the one person you actually want.

/

Sometimes you are pushed too hard.

Sometimes it is by your own hand.

And you wake up, years later, because the dreams get a little too vivid and instead of seeing where you lay your head – Germany, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands – you see another time.

And you stagger.

You stagger when all you ever needed to do was stand.

And you'd do just about anything to erase every step you took away from her, do just about anything to see her smile, do just about anything to be the balm and not the scar… and you linger longer than ever over the numbers, over the address, over the flight plans… and you can pull up memories like others lift their arms, extensions of your body with her face all over them and phantom kisses that you just cannot set free… and you'd give just about anything to hear your name come off her lips…

But no, that wouldn't be like you at all.

Because you are still fighting that battle, still putting up those walls, still manning those guns.

And you've wounded so many. And you know all the names of those you've maimed.

You know where all the bodies are buried.

You know all too well.

/

In a picture-perfect story, you come back from Europe and you lie a little bit more, but then you crash and burn one last time.

And from the ashes, you rise up.

You rise up and work on being better instead of being the best.

You ask for forgiveness and you don't get it.

But one day… one day… and it rushes wild in a pair of blue eyes, claims you like a wave, sucks you under.

In a picture-perfect story, you grow up and she loves you still and you fix what has been so broken.

_But no, that wouldn't be like you at all… would it, Ashley?_

You, falling from one bed to the next and losing yourself in excess and stranding yourself out in the deep end… You don't rise up at all. You just burn up in the flames.

And there is no Spencer Carlin there to catch you or cool you or save you.

/

Sometimes you are pushed too hard.

And sometimes you are not pushed hard enough.

/

::END::


End file.
